I have a bathroom vanity that is mostly solid oak. Since it is an outdated honey brown finish, I was planning to sand and stain it a dark espresso. The problem is that the sides of the vanity are exposed and happen to be particleboard. I tore the contact paper from the particle board but it just shredded so there is basically a thin layer of paper on the particleboard.

I'm assuming that even if I get all the contact paper backing off, staining the particle board is probably not going to turn out very nice? I was contemplating painting the sides a dark color to go with the espresso finish... really I'm not sure what to do!

Any suggestions?